YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 6, ARMENPRESS. It’s not in the interests of many countries to exert direct pressure and impose sanctions on Turkey and Azerbaijan for their war crimes in Artsakh, Human Rights Defender of Artsakh Artak Beglaryan told ARMENPRESS, emphasizing that this is a crisis for international humanitarian law.

''In general, the international humanitarian law is seriously violated also in other parts of the world and there has always been lack of practical steps for the protection of the international humanitarian law in various places’', Beglaryan said.

To the question what's the value of the Geneva Conventions and other humanitarian conventions if they are internationally adopted but remain on paper, Beglaryan answered that he has the same question for the international community.

''My demand to the international community is that they should make maximally practical steps to make Azerbaijan and Turkey respect the norms of the humanitarian law’', Beglaryan said, adding that though the representatives of the international community sincerely regret for our tragedy and the ongoing crimes, they take no serious measures to stop it. ''For this reason our conclusion is that we have to rely mainly on ourselves, our military courage and capacity'', the Human Rights Defender of Artsakh said.

According to him, the death toll among the civilians rises. Beglaryan has information about the cases of executions of civilians in the settlements under the Azerbaijani control.

''On November 5 Azerbaijan continued targeting civilian settlements and residential districts, including in capital Stepanakert, killing three civilians. Particularly, a family of grandmother and two grandsons fell victim of an Azerbaijani rocket that destroyed the entire house. This is another war crime by the Azerbaijani armed forces, since it's obvious that they deliberately target residential districts located far away from military objects. This handwriting continues for 40 days in various settlements, bringing the number of civilian casualties to at least 49, 157 have been injured, uncounted the 17 thousands of civilian buildings that have been destroyed fully or partially. We have also other information that we still clarify. Particularly in the settlements that have appeared under Azerbaijani control, civilian casualties have also been recorded'', Beglaryan said.

According to the Human Rights Defender of Artsakh, the international community continues turning blind eye to those crimes, as a result of which the crimes become more demonstrative and large scale.

Van Novikov